Project Nursery

We have been a “live” family where potential birth parents are able to select us for right at 3 months, which in all honesty feels like much longer.People always ask us what we are going to do while we waited or how would our lives change?Brad and I agreed early on that most things in our lives wouldn’t change.We continue to work, play and enjoy the things that we enjoyed doing together, with the occasional baby prep added in as well!We both knew that we did not want “the wait” and the emotions of waiting to be chosen to overtake our lives.We want to enjoy the journey of our open adoption, transforming the guest room into the nursery, deciding on which bottles to use or which car seat is the best.

The nursery was the first project that we undertook to take a huge step forward in our preparation for bringing home a baby.Brad and I had discussed early on in the process which one of our two guest rooms we would transfer into the nursery.It wasn’t long, not even three weeks to be exact, before we were disassembling the bed, going through the closet and moving everything out of the room so we could clean.Fortunately for us, that guest room is not used that often so the cleaning didn’t take long at all.Before we knew it we had taken a fully functional guest room and emptied it.We were on a mission.

The open adoption journey does not come without its own obstacles. When will we get the call?Will it be a boy or a girl?As we began preparing the nursery, we knew that we had to choose colors that could be described as being for a boy or a girl.We opted for grey as the primary color for the walls and would use orange as a very subtle accent color throughout the room.We didn’t want to just paint all of the walls grey, instead we wanted to warm the room up and make it feel more welcoming.We chose to add large white stripes to the main wall where the crib would be positioned, leaving the other walls grey.

With the help, and encouragement, of our friends Matt and Trey, the painting of the entire nursery took less than two days.The base coat of grey was painted on all of the walls first and left to dry overnight followed by the three large white stripes being painted the following afternoon.I wish I could accurately put into words the emotions we felt as we began pulling off the yellow tape separating the grey and white stripes.Brad and I were definitely emotional as the stripes were revealed and the room truly came together.We stood there with each other, speechless, a stream of tears rolling down our cheeks.

That day the nursery would not stop with just paint.Before all of the paint was completely dry we had pulled out the rug and laid it on the floor, taking turns laying and rolling on it.Then before we knew it, the crib had been assembled!We were on a mission that afternoon and by the end of the day it was no longer just a guest room – it was now the nursery.